Politics and policy
By Victor Juma, vjuma@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
- Members of Parliament used Sh2.4 billion for local travel and an additional Sh632.4 million for foreign travel in the fiscal year ended June.
- The Sh3 billion bill means each of the 349 MPs and 67 Senators cost the taxpayer Sh7.3 million in travelling expenses alone.
- Mileage claims by legislators account for one third of entire government travel budget.
- MPs are paid mileage claims at the rate of Sh109 per kilometre for up to 750 kilometres a week.
Members of Parliament spent a whopping Sh3 billion on
local and foreign travel in the fiscal year ended June, setting a new
record for a line of expenditure over which members of the county
assemblies (MCAs) have come under intense public pressure in the past
couple of months.
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Controller of Budget Agnes Odhiambo says in her latest
review of how the national government spent its money in the past
financial year that the legislators used Sh2.4 billion for local travel
and an additional Sh632.4 million for foreign travel.
The Sh3 billion bill means each of the 349 MPs and
67 Senators cost the taxpayer Sh7.3 million in travelling expenses alone
and Parliament consumed up to 32.5 per cent of the government’s Sh9.3
billion transport budget for the year ended June 2014.
Much of the Sh2.4 billion local travel budget is
made up of the MPs’ mileage claims for trips made to their
constituencies and for which a number of legislators have in the past
found themselves in trouble.
“The Parliamentary Service Commission had the
highest expenditure in domestic travel at Sh2.4 billion. This
expenditure is attributed to the MPs’ mileage reimbursements,” says the
report.
Parliament does not make public details of the
mileage claims, including how much each MP was paid during a specified
reporting period.
MPs are paid mileage claims at the rate of Sh109
per kilometre for up to 750 kilometres a week. Any distance covered
beyond this limit is compensated at the rate of 70 per cent of Sh109 or
Sh76.30 per kilometre as approved by the Automobile Association of
Kenya.
This means an MP could earn up to Sh327,000 a month on travel allowances.
Top beneficiaries of the mileage claims provision
are legislators from far-flung corners of the country such as Turkana,
Marsabit, Moyale, Mandera and Lamu.
Mrs Odhiambo’s 2013/14 full year report shows that
the Interior ministry was the second-largest spender on domestic travel
having consumed Sh884.5 million, the Judiciary (Sh377 million), the
Presidency (Sh371.4 million), and the Ministry of Devolution (Sh163.7
million).
With a Sh632.4 million foreign travel bill, the MPs
accounted for 16.2 per cent of the national government’s Sh3.8 billion
total foreign travel bill, placing them only second to the Foreign
affairs ministry that spent Sh1.7 billion on trips outside the country.
The MPs’ love for foreign trips has been taken up
by their counterparts in the county assemblies who have drawn public
anger following reports that they spend more than Sh2 billion on
overseas travel in six months.
Mrs Odhiambo has raised the red flag over the
emerging profligacy among the members of county assembly (MCAs) who have
been making numerous trips to Western and Asian nations ostensibly to
benchmark development plans.
Up to 15 countries — including Brazil and
Switzerland— have reportedly conveyed their decision to stop future
delegations of MCAs from visiting their countries, arguing that the
trips are of little benefit to Kenyan taxpayers.
The 47 county governments had set aside up to Sh8.8 billion for
foreign travel for the fiscal year ended June but the full cost of the
overseas trips will be known when the Controller of Budget publishes the
counties’ spending report next week.
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Besides the MCAs and the MPs, the other big spenders on
foreign trips were the Ministry of Sports and Culture which consumed
Sh288.2 million. The spending is linked to the cost of transporting and
keeping Kenya’s sportsmen and women to international competitions.
The Ministry of Tourism and East African Affairs
spent Sh222.2 million on travel as top officials went on an intense
drive to reverse the impact of warnings that a number of Western
governments had issued to their citizens against travelling to Kenya.
The Presidency spent Sh187.9 million, reflecting
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s aggressive economic and political diplomacy
that has seen him make scores of trips to Asian, Arab and African
countries.
The spending schedule shows that besides travel
expenses, the government continues to spend big on hospitality,
conferences, and catering services it promised to scale down in line
with an earlier austerity policy.
The Sports ministry topped the spenders in this
budget item, consuming Sh808.1 million in the review period, followed by
Parliament which spent Sh641.9 million or Sh1.5 million on each of the
416 MPs.
The Presidency was also among the top spenders in
this line of budget, forking out Sh670.3 million to host and entertain
guests of the State. The national government’s total spending on
hospitality stood at Sh3.9 billion.
Under an austerity programme announced earlier in
the just ended fiscal year, the government banned ministries and State
agencies from holding meetings in private hotels but the directive was
lifted to help shore up the hospitality industry, hard hit by a wave of
insecurity that led to a sharp drop in foreign visitors.
While catering and other services form a large part
of the recurrent expenditure, the budget review shows that civil
service pay remains the single-largest consumer of public funds.
Total personnel emoluments in the public sector
amounted to Sh268.3 billion or more than half the total recurrent
expenditure of Sh493.3 billion.
It remains to be seen whether the government’s move
to restructure its workforce in light of devolution will yield
significant savings on the public payroll.
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